Life Cycle

Americanizing Jewish youth, Emerson School, Portland, 1919

Looking at this picture, we seem to hear Uncle Sam saying, “We
want YOU to assimilate.” Public education in Maine for Jewish
immigrants like Goldie Sulkowitch (left) reflected a national
movement to use schooling as a means of Americanizing
immigrant youth. These efforts to implant respect for democracy
and American ideals are an example of outside pressures that
shaped Jewish identity in Maine.